Music Box | Jay Dee

Mike Newmark Assistant News Editor

J Dilla
Jay Dee
Donuts
[Stones Throw]
4 out of 5 stars

Donuts—the latest release from prolific and vastly influential hip-hop producer Jay Dee (James Yancey)—is a loosely flowing patchwork of minute-long instrumentals. The album’s 31 tracks were created by stitching together samples from ’70s soul, hip-hop and some other unidentifiable sources. Some of these samples you’ve heard before, some of them you haven’t.

Donuts takes on a poignant significance, however, when one considers that lupus, a disease of the immune system, took Jay Dee’s life just three days after the album’s release date on his thirty-second birthday. In a stark white hospital room, surrounded by vinyls and whatever equipment he could manage, Jay Dee recorded Donuts with death looming above him. That Donuts is as joyful, vibrant, and richly detailed as it is testifies not only to Jay Dee’s creativity and tireless work ethic, but to his appreciation of life as well.

Though Jay Dee never adhered to a formula, his work with Common, Madlib, A Tribe Called Quest, and Slum Village pitted him as a fine jazz-rap producer whose presence could be identified by stuttering, slightly off-kilter beats, sparse-but-effective jazz melodies and syncopated flourishes. The foundation of Donuts isn’t hip-hop this time, but the honeyed soul of such luminaries as Dionne Warwick and Lionel Richie.

While some guesswork is obviously needed for the reason for this departure, it’s possible that Jay Dee was attempting to let us in on his influences and, through the overlaying of hip-hop beats, scratches and sampled emcees, demonstrate how his music fits into that canon.

There may be the even simpler explanation, that he loved the music of his idols much more than he loved his own. He often refused to be credited in liner notes, and on his only solo album prior to Donuts, he gave center stage to tyro emcees like Lacks and Phat Kat (who made as much of an impression as an acorn hitting you on the head). That doesn’t mean that Jay Dee dislikes getting his hands dirty—only that he deeply appreciates the music that made hip-hop possible in the first place.

The image that Donuts so often evokes is one of Jay Dee excitedly rifling through crates of old vinyls, his eyes glinting when he finds one he likes and considers its limitless possibilities.

Despite the circumstances in which Donuts was recorded, the album is remarkably carefree. From the brash guitars of “Workinonit,” to the sci-fi sound effects of “

Lightworks,” to the smooth beats-and-bliss of, well, just about everything, Donuts sounds like the work of a thriving musician playing clubs in the prime of his life, grabbing samples right and left and tossing them gleefully into his salad bowl.

There are a few indications, however, that Jay Dee was fully aware of his deteriorating condition, even though he kept his closest friends in the dark. “Time: The Donut of the Heart” is a notable example, with its sweet, contemplative soul guitar, references to time and the street-scholarly voice of Poppa Yo from Dwele’s Subject.

What seems at first like a haphazard collage dramatically changes with the knowledge that Donuts is Jay Dee’s very last recording. There will be no more returns to form, no more leaps into uncharted hip-hop territory. The notion of doing something like there’s no tomorrow is cliché, but then again, Jay Dee knew that he was going to die when his kidneys failed in 2005. With each subsequent listen, Donuts sounds more and more like the album he always wanted to make. Though Jay Dee himself is no longer with us, his influence is alive and well in some of the best productions by Dwele, Kanye West, the Neptunes, and a host of others.

On his deathbed, Jay Dee said to his mother, Maureen Yancey, “I promise you, everything is going to be alright.” Donuts may be, quite simply, his way of assuring his listeners and admirers of the same thing.